
Class _Jpft_ 4^0 3 

Book.. JSJ»- 

GopyiightN _ _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






' On the arch where olives overhead 
Print the blue sky with 
twig and leaf 
(That sharp curled leaf which 
they never shed.)" 

— Old Pictures in Florence. 



Olive Prints 



Selections 

from Robert Browning's Poems 

for every day in the year 



Compiled by J. Pauline Smith 
Detroit, Michigan ' 



1903 



Press of Wm. Graham Printing Co. 
Detroit 



St 



' 






. >W\ 


a. L 




1 


33 


/ 2, % 






M*Y », 


1 



Copyrighted, 190J, by J. Pauline Smith, 
Detroit, Mieh. 






I 



Sfanuarp 



OLIVE PRINTS. 



3|anuari? 

i. Here comes gay New Year with a gift, no doubt 
Look up and let in light that longs to shine, 
One stroke of light and where will darkness hide ? 
— Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 

2. "I profess no other share 

In the selection of my lot, than this 
My ready answer to the will of God 
Who summons me to be his organ." 

— Paracelsus. 

3. Be sure that God 

Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns 
impart ! — Paracelsus. 

4. There's many a crown for who can reach. 

— The Last Ride Together. 

5. Aspire, break bounds ! I say, 
Endeavor to be good, and better still, 

And best ! Success is naught, endeavor's all. 
— Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 

6. Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, 
Our time so brief, 'tis clear if we refuse 

The means so limited, the tools so rude 
To execute our purpose — life will fleet, 
And we shall fade and leave our task undone. 

— Paracelsus. 



8 JANUARY 

J. Let a man contend to the uttermost 

For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! 

— The Statue and the Bust. 

8. And what is our failure here but a triumph's 

evidence 
For the fulness of the days? 

— Abt Vogler. 

9. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for? 

— Andrea del Sarto. 
10. Oh, never star 

Was lost here, but it rose afar ! — Waring. 

n. This world's no blot for us 

Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 

— Fra hippo Lippi. 

12. Why stay we on the earth unless to grow? 

— Clcon. 

13. — 'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but 

what man Would do. — Saul. 

14. Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true ! 

— Bishop Blongram's Apology. 

15. Is not God now i' the world His power first made? 
Is not His love at issue still with sin, 

Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? 

— A Death in the Desert. 



JANUARY 9 

16. How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit 

to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever 
in joy ! — Saul. 

17. If I live yet, it is for good, more love 
Through me to men. 

— A Death in the Desert. 

18. Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, 
A master to obey, a course to take, 
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? 

— A Death in the Desert. 

19. Never fear but there's provision 

Of the Devil's to quench knowledge, lest we walk 

the earth in rapture ! 
Making those who catch God's secret, just so 

much more prize their capture ! 

— Christina. 

20. Live and learn, though life's short, learning hard. 

— Paracelsus. 

21. What I ask, I gain. — In a Balcony. 

22. Do your endeavor like a man, and leave 
The rest to fortune who assists the bold — 

— Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 

23. Would you have your songs endure? 
Build on the human heart ! — Sordello. 

24. Youth once gone is gone ; 
Deeds let escape are never to be done. 

— Sordello. 



io JANUARY 

25. Love bids touch truth, endure truth, and embrace 
Truth, though, embracing truth, love crush itself. 

— Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. 

26. I say that man was made to grow, not stop; 
That help, he needed once, and needs no more, 
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn: 
For he hath new deeds, and new helps to these. 

— A Death in the Desert. 

27. For life with all it yields of joy and woe, 
And hope and fear, — 

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, 

And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost 
Such prize despite the envy of the world. 

— A Death in the Desert. 

28. Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts ! 

— Paracelsus. 

29. 'Tis man's to explore 

Up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his 

reason : 
No torch, it suffices — held deftly and straight. 
— Apollo and the Fates. 

30. 'Tis a life long toil till our lump be leaven — 
The better ! What's come to perfection perishes. 

— Old Pictures in Florence. 

31. Rejoice that man is hurled 
From change to change unceasingly, 
His soul's wings never furled ! 

— James Lee's Wife. 



jfebruatp 



jfebruarp 

1. Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! 
Be our joys three-parts pain ! 
Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge 
the throe ! — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

2. Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true ! 

— In a Balcony. 

3. God spoke, and gave us the word to keep: 
Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 

'Mid a faithless world — at watch and ward, 
Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. 

— Holy Cross Day. 

4. Be sure they sleep not whom God needs ! Nor fear 
Their holding light his charge, when every hour 
That finds that charge delayed, is a new death. 

— Paracelsus. 

5. They know and therefore rule; I, too, will know! 

— Paracelsus. 

6. Know, not for knowing's sake, 
But to become a star to men forever. 

— Paracelsus. 

7. How can that course be safe which from the first 
Produces carelessness to human love? 

— Paracelsus. 



14 FEBRUARY 

8. What I aspired to be, 
And was not comforts me : 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink 
i' the scale. — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

9. The aim if reached or not makes great the life. 

— Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

10. In every man's career are certain points 
Whereon he dares not be indifferent; 
The world detects him clearly, if he dare, 
As baffled at the game, and losing life. 

— Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

11. My business is not to remake myself, 

But make the absolute best of what God made. 

— Ibid. 

12. When the fight begins within himself, 

A man's worth something. — Ibid. 

13. I go to prove my soul ! 

I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
I shall arrive ! what time, what circuit first, 
I ask not; but unless God send his hail, 
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, 
In sometime, his good time, I shall arrive : 
He guides me and the bird. In his good time. 

— Paracelsus. 

14. Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air, 
The clear dear breath of God that loveth us, 
Where small birds reel and winds take their 

delight ! — Pauline. 



FEBRUARY 15 

15. God above 

Is great to grant as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love. 

— Evelyn Hope. 

16. Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. 

— The Flight of the Duchess. 

17. The morn has enterprise, — deep quiet droops 
With evening; triumph takes the sunset hour. 

— Paracelsus. 

18. I know thee, who has kept my path, and made 
Light for me in darkness — tempering sorrow, 
So that it reached me like a solemn joy: 

It were too strange that I should doubt thy love. 

—Ibid. 

19. "I prefer to look for the highest attainment, not 

simply the high." 

20. As with body so deals law with soul, 

That's stung to strength through weakness, strives 

for good 
Through evil, — earth its race-ground, heaven its 

goal. 
Presumably. 

— Parleyings: Bernard de Mandeville. 

21. Evil is in its nature loud, while good is silent. 

— Pippa Passes. 

22. Power is power, my boy, and still 

.Marks a man, — God's gift magnific, exercised for 
Sfood or ill. — Clive. 



16 FEBRUARY 

23. Be God the rewarder, since 

God pays debts seven for one : who squanders on 
Him shows thrift. — Muleykeh. 

24. Straight on I shall go 

Truth helping; win with it or die with it. 

— King Victor and King Charles. 

25. Weakness never needs be falseness: truth is truth 

in each degree 
Thunder-pealed by God to Nature, whispered by 
my soul to me. — La Saisias. 

26. 'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, 
And matter enough to save one's own. 

— A Light Woman. 

27. God's finger marks distinctions, all so fine, 
We would confound. 

— King Victor and King Charles. 

28. Far better commit a fault and have done — 
And choose the pure, 

And look where the healing waters run, 
And strive and strain to be good again, 
And a place in the other world insure, 
All glass and gold, with God for its sun. 

— The Worst of It. 

29. "My whole life long I learned to love. 
This hour my utmost art I prove 
And speak my passion." 

— One Way of Love. 



jttarct) 



Jflarclj 

Quotations from "The Ring and the Book."* 

i. Oh, what a dawn of day! 

How the March sun feels like May ! 

All is hlue again 

After last night's rain, 
And the South dries the hawthorn spray. 

2. Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot, 
And so be pedestaled in triumph? 

3. The moral sense grows but by exercise. 

4. Man is born nowise to content himself, 
But please God. 

5. For I am aware it is the seed of act, 
God holds appraising in His hollow palm, 

Xot act grown great thence on the world below. 
Leafage and branchage, vulgar eyes admire. 

6. This life is brief and troubles die with it: 
Where were the prick to soar up homeward else? 

7. Healthy minds let bygones be, 

Leave old crimes to grow young and virtuous-like 
I' the .sun and air; so time treats ugly deeds: 
They take the natural blessing of all change. 



''Except the first, from "A Lovers' Quarrel." 



20 MARCH 

8. A worm must turn 

If it would have its wrong observed by God. 

9. Trust's politic, suspicion does the harm, 
There's but one way to brow-beat this world. 
Dumb-founder doubt and repay scorn in kind, — 
To go on trusting, namely, till faith move 
Mountains. 

10. He fears God, why then needs he fear the world? 

11. But human promise, oh, how short of shine! 
How topple down the piles of hope we rear ! 

12. Have hope now, and one day expect content! 

13. Blame I can bear though not blame worthiness. 

14. Let us leave God alone ! 

Why should I doubt He will explain in time 
What I feel now but fail to find the words? 

15. I thirst for truth 

But shall not drink it till I reach the source. 

16. To live — 

********* 

To have to do with nothing but the true, 
The good, the eternal — and these, not alone 
In the main current of the general life, 
But small experiences of every day, 
Concerns of the particular hearth and home: 
To learn not only by a comet's rush 
But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, God — 
But the comfort, Christ. 



MARCH 2T 

17. There's nothing in nor out of the world 
Good except truth. 

18. 'Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ, 
Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft. 

19. You must know that a man gets drunk with truth 
Stagnant inside him ! 

20. God takes his own part in each thing He made; 
Made for a reason, He conserves his work, 
Gives each its proper instinct of defence. 

21. Causeless rage breeds, — rageful cause, 
Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep. 

22. Duty is still 
Wisdom. 

23. All clay, I sent prayer like incense up 
To God the strong, God the beneficent, 
God ever mindful in all stress and strait, 

Who. for our own good, makes the need extreme, 
Till at the last He puis forth might and saves. 

24. I trust 
In the compensating threat God. 

25. Honor is a gift of God to man 
Precious beyond compare. 

26. A good thing, done unhandsomely, turns ill. 
* # * * * * * 

Right, promptly done, is twice right; right delayed 
Turns wrong. 



22 MARCH 

2J. Since all flesh is weak, 

Bind weakness together, we get strength : 
The individual weighed, found wanting, try 
Some institution, honest artifice 
Whereby the units grow compact and firm ! 

28. March assured, 
Learning anew the use of soldiership, 
Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear, 
Loyalty to the life's end ! 

29. Man should be humble : — 

And God dethroned has dreadful plagues for such ! 
He warns me not to dread a quick repulse, 
Nor slow defeat, but a complete success ! 

30. You never know what life means till you die : 
Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life 

live, 
Gives it whatever the significance. 

31. It is the glory and good of Art, 
That Art remains the one way possible 

Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least. 
# * * ^ * * * 

Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men, 
But to mankind, — Art may tell a truth 
Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 
Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 



&prtl 



£prtl 

"April — the Blossom Month." 

i. The year's at the spring, 

And day's at the morn; 

Morning's at seven; 
The hillside's dew-pearled: 
The lark's on the wing, 
The snail's on the thorn, 
God's in his heaven — 

All's right with the world. 

— Pippa Passes. 

2. O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 
And knowing this is love, and love is duty. 
\Yhat further may be sought for or declared? 

— The Guardian Angel. 

3. But Easter-Day breaks ! But 
Christ rises ! Mercy every way 

Is infinite — — Easter-Day. 

4. Turf 'tis thy walk's o'er, 

Foliage thy flight's to. — Pisgah-Sights. 

5. I find earth not gray but rosy, 

Heaven not grim but fair of hue. 
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare? All's blue. 

— At the "Mermaid." 

6. I trust in nature for the stable laws 

Of beauty and utility. — Spring shall plant, 
And Autumn garner to the end of time. 

— A Soul's Tragedy. 



26 APRIL 

J. God is the perfect poet, 

Who in his person acts his own creations. 

— Paracclstis. 

8. I trust in God — the right shall be the right 
And other than the wrong, while he endures : 
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 
The outward and the inward, nature's good 
And God's. — A Soul's Tragedy. 

9. What if the rose streak of morning 
Pale and depart in a passion of tears? 

Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning ! 
Love once — e'en love's disappointment endears ! 
A minute's success pays the failure of years. 
— Apollo and the Fates. 

10. In God's eye, the earth's firm stuff 
Was, neither more nor less, enough 
To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. 

— Easter-Day. 

n. Oh world, where all things pass and naught abides, 
Oh life, the long mutation — is it so? 
Is it with life as with the body's change? 
— Where, e'en though better follow, good must 

pass. 
Nor manhood's strength can mate with boyhood's 

grace, 
Nor age's wisdom, in its turn, find strength, 
But silently the first gift dies away, 
And though the new stays, never both at once. 

— Luria. 



APRIL 27 

12. The leaf-buds on the vines are woolly 

I noticed that today; 
One day more bursts them open fully : 
You know the red turns gray. 

— The Lost Mistress. 

13. Day! 

Faster and more fast, 
O'er night's brim, day boils at last ; 
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloudcup's brim 
Where spurting and suppressed it lay, 
For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
Of yonder's gap in the solid gray 
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; 
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed 
the world. — Pippa Passes. 

14. An exquisite touch 

Bides in the birth of things: no after-time can 

much 
Enhance that fine, that faint fugitive first of all. 
— Fifinc at the Fair. 

15. For, aye this breeds youth in the old, — "to learn 

well." 
— From The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. 

16. — Few of men this faculty is born with — 

To honor, without grudge, their friend, successful. 

—Ibid. 

17. When the eve has its last streak 

The night has its first star. — Strafford. 



28 APRIL 

18. Youth is the only time 

To think and to decide on a great course. 

—Ibid. 

19. Take what is, trust what may be ! 

— Prologue to Ferishtah's Fancies. 

20. Belief or unbelief 

Bears upon life, determines its whole course, 
Begins at its beginning. 

— Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

21. What matters happiness? 
Duty ! There's man's one moment. 

— Flight of the Duchess. 

22. Oh ! we are sunk enough here, God knows ! but 

not quite so sunk that moments, 
Sure, though seldom, are denied us, when the 

spirit's true endowments 
Stand out plainly from its false ones, and apprise 

us if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way to its triumph 

or undoing. — Christina. 

23. Dare first 

The chief emprise; dispel yon cloud between 
The sun and us ; nor fear that, though our heads 
Find earlier warmth and comfort from his ray, 
What lies about our feet, the multitude 
Will fail of benefaction presently. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau. 

24. Dance, yellows and whites and reds, — 
Lead your gay orgy, leaves, stalks, heads 
Astir with the wind in the tulip-beds ! 

— Song from Parleyings : With Gerard de Lair esse. 



25- 



APRIL 29 

Ever with best desert goes diffidence. 

— Blot on the 'Scutcheon. 



26. In life's exceptional, 

When old things terminate and new commence, 
A solitary great man's worth the world. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schzvangau. 

27. Is your choice made? Why, then, act up to choice ! 

—Ibid. 

28. Care thou for thyself alone 

F the conduct of the mind God made thee with ! 
Think, as if man had never thought before ! 
Act, as -if all creation hung attent 
On the acting of such faculty as thine 
To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece ! 

— Ibid. 

29. Hear the truth and bear the truth. 
And bring the truth to bear on all you are 
And do, assured that only good comes thence 
Whate'er the shape good take ! — Ibid. 

30. And after April, when May follows 

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows ! 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's 

edge — 
That's the wise thrush : he sings each song twice 

over 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture ! 

— Home Thoughts from Abroad. 



'And, Here's May-month, all Bloom, all Bounty." 

i. My own month came, 

'Twas a sunrise of blossoming and May. 

— Sordcllo. 

2. Such a starved bank of moss 

Till, that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across : 
Violets were born ! 
— Prologue to The Two Poets of Croisic. 

3. Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter 
Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first 

breath 
Blew soft from the moist hills; the blackthorn 

boughs. 
So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
In the sunshine were white with coming buds, 
Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 

— Pauline. 

4. How should externals satisfy my soul ? 

— Sordcllo. 

5. Each shall love in me the love that leads 

His soul to power's perfection. — Ibid. 

6. Thought is the soul of act. — Ibid. 



34 MAY 

7. (Robert Browning, Born May 7, 1812.) 
Man's thoughts and loves and hates ! 
Earth is my vineyard, these grew there : 
From grape of the ground, I made or marred 
My vintage; easy the task or hard. 

Who set it — his praise be my reward ! 

— Epilogue. 

8. On ! Give yourself, excluding aught beside, 
To the day's task; compel your slave provide 
Its utmost at the soonest ; turn the leaf 
Thoroughly conned. — Sordello. 

9. Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: 

wear 
Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair ! 

— Sordello. 



10. "But the soul is not the body:" and the breath is 
not the flute; 
Both together make the music : either marred and 
all is mute. — La Saisiaz. 



Oh life, life-breath, 
Life-blood, — ere sleep, come travail, life ere death ! 
This life-stream on my path, direct, oblique, 
But always streaming ! Hindrances ? They pique : 
Helps? Such. ., but why repeat, my soul o'er tops 
Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops ? 
Enough that I can live, and would live ! 

— Sordello. 



MAY 35 

12. If I stOOp 

Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, 
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 
Close to my heart; its splendor, soon or late. 
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day. 

— Paracelsus. 

13. Another life's ordained me: the world's tide 
Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press 
Of waves, a single wave through weariness 
Gently laid aside, laid upon shore? 

My life must be lived out in foam and roar, 
No question. —Sordello. 

!4- 'Tis time 

New hopes should animate the world, new light 
Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus 

shall 
The heaven reserved for us at last receive 
Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, 
But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze 
Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, 
Not seldom glorified their life below. 

— Paracelsus. 

15. Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man 

become aware 
Life has worth incalculable. Every moment that 

he spends 
So much gain or loss for that next life which on 

this life depends. — La Saisiaz. 



36 MAY 

1 6. Does the day break, is the hour imminent 

When one deed, when my whole life's deed, my 

deed 
Must be accomplished? 

— The Return of the Druses. 

ij. To know is something, and to prove 

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more: 
But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something too. 

— Cleon. 

1 8. Thank God, no paradise stands barred 
To entry, and I find it hard to be a Christian. 

— Easter-Day. 

19. First give us knowledge, then appoint its use ! 

— Parleyings : Christopher Smart. 

20. Safety induces culture : culture seeks 
To institute, extend and multiply 

The difference between safe man and man, 
Able to live alone; progress means 
What but abandonment of fellowship? 

— The Inn Album. 

21. We are made so that we love 

First when we see them painted, things we have 

passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 
And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; 
God uses us to help each other so, 
Lending our minds out. — Fra hippo Lippi. 



MAY 37 

22. Overhead the tree-tops meet, 

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet; 
There was naught above me, naught below, 
My childhood had not learned to know : 
For what are the voices of birds 
— Aye, and of beasts, — but words, our words, 
Only so much more sweet? 

— Pippa Passes. 

23. One may do whatever one likes 

In Art : the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains to know. 

—Ibid. 

24. Never was so plain a truth 

As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame 
Just where he wills on earth. 

— FiUnc at the Fair. 

25. So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts 
The teller, whose worst crime gets somehow grace, 

avowed. — Ibid. 

26. The great deed ne'er grows small. 

— Echetlos. 

27. All service ranks the same with God : 
If now, as formerly he trod 
Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we; there is no last nor first. 

— Pippa Passes. 



3« MAY 

28. Say not "a small event !" Why "small ?" 
Costs it more pain than this, ye call 

A "great event," should come to pass, 
Than that? Untwine me from the mass 
Which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 

— Ibid. 

29. Make what is absolutely new — I can't, 
Mar what is already made well enough — 

I won't : but turn to best account the thing 
That's half-made — that I can. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schzvangau. 

30. 'Tis in the advance of individual minds 

That the slow crowd should ground their expec- 
tation 
Eventually to follow. — Paracelsus. 

31. May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 

— Pippa Passes. 



3fune 



31une 

June's Twice June since She Breathed it with Me. 

i. Well for those who live through June! 

Great noontides, thunder storms, all glaring pomps 
That triumph at the heels of June the god 
Leading his revel through our leafy world. 

— Pippa Passes. 

2. There is no good of life but love — but love! 
What else looks good is some shade flung from 

love; 
Love gilds it, gives it worth. 

— In a Balcony. 

3. How soon a smile of God can change the world! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 

— In a Balcony. 

4. Let me slake 

Thirst at your presence ! — Too Late. 

5. But the soul 
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that 

whole ; 
Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new. 
— Any Wife to any Husband. 

6. See how I come, unchanged, unworn ! 
See, where my life broke off from thine 
How fresh the splinters keep and fine, — 
Only a touch and we combine ! 

— In Three Days. 



42 JUNE 

j. You'll love me yet ! — and I can tarry 
Your love's protracted growing: 
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry 
From seeds of April's sowing. 

— Song from Pippa Passes. 

8. But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow ! 
Let them once more absorb me ! one look now 
Will lap me round forever, not to pass 

Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: 
Hold me but safe again within the bond 
Of one immortal look ! All woe that was, 
Forgotten, and all terror that may be, 
Defied, — no past is mine, no future; look at me! 
— Eurydice to Orpheus. 

9. The moth's kiss, first ! 

Kiss me as if you made believe 
You were not sure, this eve, 
How my face, your flower, had pursed 
Its petals up; so, here and there 
You brush it, till I grow aware 
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst. 

— In a Gondola. 

10. The bee's kiss, now ! 

Kiss me as if you entered gay 

My heart at some noonday, 

A bud that dares not disallow 

The claim, so all is rendered up, 

And passively its shattered cup 

Over your head to sleep I bow. — Ibid. 



JUNE 43 

ii. He looked at her, as a lover can 

She looked at him, as one who awakes : 
The past was a sleep, and her life began. 

— The Statue and the Bust. 

12. When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face, 
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 

— Love Among the Ruins. 

13. Love is all and Death is naught! 

— The Householder. 

14. If you loved only what were worth your love. 
Love were clear gain and wholly well for you. 

— Song from "James Lee's Wife." 

15. All the breath and the bloom of the year in the 

bag of one bee: 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the 

heart of one gem : 
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine 

of the sea : 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, 
wealth, and — how far above them — 
Truth that's brighter than gem, 
Trust that's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all 
were for me 
In the kiss of one girl. 

— Sumnmm Bonum. 



44 JUNE 

16. If you get simple beauty and naught else, 
You get about the best thing God invents : 
That's somewhat : and you'll find the soul you 

have missed, 
Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 

— Fra hippo Lippi. 

17. Words of praise were all to seek ! 
Face of you and form of you, 
Did they find the praise so weak 
When my lip just touched your cheek — 
Touch which let my soul come through? 

18. Wanting is — what? 
Summer redundant, 
Blueness abundant, 
— Where is the blot? 

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, 
— Framework which waits for a picture to frame; 
What of the leafage, what of the flower? 
Roses embowering with naught they embower ! 
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, 
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer ! 
Breathe but one breath 

Rose-beauty above 
And all that was death 
Grows life, grows love, 

Grows love ! — Jocoseria. 

19. The good stars met in your horoscope 
Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 

— Evelyn Hope. 



JUNE 45 

20. Love is incompatible with falsehood — purifies, 

assimilates 
All other passions to itself. 

— Colombo's Birthday. 

21. Love, if you knew the light 
That your soul casts in my sight, 

How I look to you 

For the pure and true, 
And the beauteous and the right, — 

Bear with a moment's spite 
When a mere mote threats the white ! 

— A Lover's Quarrel. 

22. I follow wherever I am led, 

Knowing so well the leader's hand: 
O woman-country, wooed not wed, 

Loved all the more by earth's male lands, 
Laid to their hearts instead ! — 

— By the Fireside. 

23. "I loved her: love's track lay 

O'er sand and pebbles, as all travelers know." 

— Bifurcation. 

24. "I love once as I live once." — In a Balcony. 

25. With this day's heat 

We shall go on through years of cold. 

— In a Balcony. 



46 JUNE 

26. I choose to wear you stamped all over me, 
Your name upon my forehead and my breast, 
You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge, 
That men may see, all over, you in me — 

That pale loves may die out of their pretence 
In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. 

— In a Balcony. 

27. My own, see where the years conduct ! 

At first, 'twas something our two souls 
Should mix as mists do; each is sucked 

In each now : on, the new stream rolls, 
Whatever rocks obstruct. — By the Fireside. 

28. Think, when our one soul understands 

The great Word which makes all things new, 
When earth breaks up and heaven expands, 

How will the change strike me and you 
In the house not made with hands? 

—Ibid. 

29. (Death of Mrs. Browning, June 29, 1861.) 
Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, 

Your heart anticipate my heart, 
You must be just before, in fine, 

See and make me see, for your part, 
New depths of the divine ! — Ibid. 

30. Life's inadequate to joy, 

As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 

— Cleon. 



3folp 



Hull? 

i. Well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne, 

For beauty, knowledge, strength should stand 

alone, 
And mortals love the letters of his name. 

— Protus. 

2. Italy, my Italy ! 

Queen Mary's saying serves for me — 

Open my heart and you will see 

Graved inside of it "Italy."' — De Gustibus. 

3. Who's obliged 

To give up life yet try no self-defense? 

—Mr. Sludge, "The Medium." 

4. But little do or can the best of us: 
That little is achieved through Liberty. 
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus, 
His fellow shall continue bound? 

— Why I Am a Liberal. 

5. How very long since I have thought 
Concerning — much less wished for — aught 
Beside the good of Italy, 

For which I live and mean to die ! 

— The Italian in England. 

6. I cherish most 

My love of England — how her name, a word 
Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat! 

— Pauline. 



So JULY 

7. Crowns are from God, you in his name hold yours. 

— King Victor and King Charles. 

8. All mirth triumphs, sadness means defeat. 

— Sordello. 

9. Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing, 
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good — 
Thy fitful sunshine minutes, coming, going, 

As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood — 
All shall be mine ! — Pippa Passes. 

10. Each soul of every grade 

Was meant to be itself, prove in itself complete, 
And, in completion, good. 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

11. He did too many grandnesses, to note 
Much in the meaner things about his path ; 
And stepping there with face towards the sun, 
Stopped seldom to pluck weeds or to ask their 

names. — Ibid. 

12. Who knows but the favor done 

May fall into its place as duty too? — Ibid. 

13. Love is the only good in the world. 

— Flight of the Duchess. 

14. "Raise soul, sink sense !" 

— Aristophanes' Apology. 

15. Are there not 

Two points in the adventure of a diver, 
One — when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, 
One — when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? 

— Paracelsus. 



JULY 51 

16. Where is the use of the lip's red charm, 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, 
And the blood that blues the inside arm — 
Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine? 

— The Statue and the Bust. 

17. Truth's a weighty matter, 

And, truth at issue, we can't flatter ! 

— Waring. 

18. What I love best in all the world 
Is a castle precipice-encurled, 

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. 

— "De Gustibus." 

19. O prodigality of life, blind waste 

I' the world, of power profuse without the will 
To make life do its work, deserve its day ! 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

20. What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's 

all; 
Cram in a day what his youth took a year to hold : 
When we mind labor, then only, we're too old. 
— Flight of the Duchess. 

21. A people is but the attempt of many 
To rise to the completer life of one; 
And those who live as models for the mass 
Arc singly of more value than they. 

— Liiria. 



52 JULY 

22. History shows you men whose master-touch 
Not so much modifies as makes anew; 
Minds that transmute nor need restore at all. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schzvangau. 

23. Art — which I may style the love of loving, rage 
Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of 

things 
For truth's sake, whole and sole, not any good, 

truth brings 
The knower, seer, feeler, beside. 

24. Leave the mere rude 

Explicit details ! 'tis but brother's speech ' 

We need, speech where an accent's change gives 

each 
The other's soul — — Sordello. 

25. Ah, that brave 

Bounty of poets, the one royal race 

That ever was, or will be, in this world ! 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

26. We have to live alone to set forth well 
God's praise. — Paracelsus. 

27. Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity; 
These are its sign and note and character. 

— Ibid. 

28. Lie not. Endure no lie which needs your heart 
And hand to push it out of mankind's path. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schzvangau. 



JULY S3 

29. I take the trial ! it is meet, 

The little I can do, be done; that faith, 
All I can offer, want no perfecting 
Which my own act may compass. 

—The Return of the Druses. 

30. A sphere is but a sphere; 

Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here; 

Since to the spirit's absoluteness all 

Are like. — Sordello. 

31. What rises is myself, 

Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, 
Are left, I rise above them. 

— Pippa Passes. 



august 



#ugutft 

1. The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us 
To come trip o'er its white waste of waves, 
And try escape from earth, and fleet as free. 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

2. Why should despair be? Since, distinct above 
Man's wickedness and folly, flies the wind 
And floats the cloud, free transport for our soul 
Out of its fleshly durance dim and low, — 

Greed and strife. 
Hatred and cark and care, what place have they 
In yon blue liberality of heaven? 

— Aristophanes' Apology. 

3. If we have souls, know how to see and use, 
One place performs, like any other place, 
The proper service every place on earth 
Was framed to furnish man with : serves alike 
To give him note that, through the place he sees, 
A place is signified he never saw, 
But, if he lack not soul, may learn to know. 

— Sordello. 

4. May not looks be told, 

Gesture made speak, and speech so amplified 
That words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, 
they lose? — Aristophanes' Apology. 

5. "As he willed he worked ; 

And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure, 
Triumph his whole life through, submitting work 
To work's right judges, never to the wrong — 
To competency, not ineptitude." 
— Of Euripides in "Aristophanes' Apology." 



58 AUGUST 

6. Truth, for all beauty ! Beauty, in all truth — 
That's certain somehow ! Must the eagle lilt 
Lark-like, needs fir-tree blossom rose-like ? No ! 
Strength and utility charm more than grace, 
And what's most ugly proves most beautiful. 

—Ibid. 

7. — Morning's laugh sets all the crags alight 
Above the baffled tempest ; tree and tree 
Stir themselves from the stupor of the night, 
And every strangled branch resumes its right 
To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, 

waves free 
In dripping glory. 

— Parleyings : Gerard de Lairesse. 

8. Noon is the conqueror, — not a spray, nor leaf, 
Nor herb, nor blossom but has rendered up 
Its morning dew. — Ibid. 

9. Abrupt 

The sun that seemed, in stooping sure to melt 
Our mountain-ridge, is mastered; black the belt 
Of westward crags, his gold could not corrupt. 
Barriers again the valley, lets the flow 
Of lavish glory waste itself away 
— Whither? For new climes, fresh eyes breaks 
the day! —Ibid. 

10. What were life 
Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife 
Through the ambiguous Present to the goal 
Of some all-reconciling Future? 

— Parleyings : Gerard de Lairesse. 

11. Let things be — not seem, 
Do, and nowise dream ! — Ibid. 



AUGUST 59 

12. There is no truer truth obtainable 
By Man than comes of music. 

— Parlcyings: Charles Avison. 

13. Man's the prerogative — knowledge once gained — 
To ignore, — find new knowledge to press for, to 

swerve 
In pursuit of, no, not for a moment : attained — 
Why, onward, through ignorance ! Dare and de- 
serve ! 

— Parley ings : Fust and His Friends. 

14. As still to its asymptote speedeth the curve, 

So approximates Man — Thee, who reachable not, 
Hast formed him to yearningly follow Thy whole 
Sole and single omniscience ! 

— Fust and His Friends. 

15. Who employs me requires the plain truth. 

— The Bean-Feast. 

16. Ruling men is vulgar, easy and ignoble: 

Rid yourself of conscience, quick you have at 
beck and call the fond herd. 

— Pietro of Abano. 

17. Would we move the world, not earth but heaven 

must be our fulcrum — pou sto! 

— Pietro of Abano. 

18. "Bounteous God, 

Deviser and dispenser of all gifts 

To soul through sense, — In Art the soul uplifts 

Man's best of thanks !" 

— Parleyings: Francis Furini. 



60 AUGUST 

19. The sum and seal of being's progress. 

—Ibid. 

20. Made to know on, know ever, I must know 
All to be known at any halting-stage 

Of my soul's progress, such as earth, where wage 
War, just for soul's instruction, pain with joy, 
Folly with wisdom, all that works annoy 
With all that quiets and contents, — in brief, 
Good strives with evil. 

— Parleyings: Francis Furini. 

21. Type needs anti-tiype: 

As night needs day, as shine needs shade, so good 
Needs evil: How were pity understood 
Unless by pain? 

— Parleyings: Francis Furini. 

22. — There's no bulwark in man's wealth to him 
Who, through a surfeit, kicks — into the dim 
And disappearing — Right's great altar. 

— The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. 

23. Zeus, who leads onward mortals to be wise, 
Appoints that suffering masterfully teach. 

— Ibid. 

24. The license of age has its limit; thou diest at last; 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at 

her height. 
So with man — so his power and his beauty forever 
take flight. — Saul. 

25. Each deed thou hast done 

Dies, revives, goes to work in the world. 

— Saul. 



AUGUST 61 

26. "A peep through my window, if folk prefer; 
But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine." 

— House. 

27. Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse 
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, 
That admiration grows as knowledge grows? 
That imperfection means perfection hid, 
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time? 

— Cleon. 

28. In man there's failure only since he left 
The lower and inconscious forms of life. 

— Cleon. 

29. All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; 

Clouds overcome it; 



Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights. 
— A Grammarian's Funeral. 

30. That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Seeks it and does it : 
This high man with a great thing to pursue, 
Dies ere he knows it. 

— A Grammarian's Funeral. 

31. For note when evening shuts, 
A certain moment cuts 

The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: 
A whisper from the west 
Shoots — "Add this to the rest, 
Fake it and try its worth: here dies another day." 

— Rabbi Ben Ezra. 



September 



September 

i. Duty be mine to tread in that high sphere 
Where love from duty ne'er disparts. 

— Bifurcation. 

2. "With God a day endures alway, 
A thousand years are but a day." 

— The Boy and the Angel. 

3. Next life relieves the soul of body, yields 
Pure spiritual enjoyment. 

— Bishop Blou gram's Apology. 

4. For us 

Failure; but, when God fails, despair. 

— Dis Alitcr Visum. 

5. — What's whole, can increase no more, 

Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere. 

—Ibid. 

6. 'Tis thou, God, who givest, 'tis I who receive 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to 

believe. — Saul. 

7. As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be 

proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being 
beloved ! — Saul. 

8. He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest 

shall bear the most weak 
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for ! my 

flesh, that I seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. — Saul. 



66 SEPTEMBER 

9. That one Face far from vanish, rather grows, 
Or decomposes but to recompose, 
Become my universe that feels and knows ! 

— Epilogue. 

10. "The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, 
And again in his border see Israel set." 

— Holy-Cross Day. 

11. "God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 
Rests never on the track until it reach 
Delinquency." — Cenciaja. 

12. (Married Sept. 12, 1846.) 

All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red 

Now a dart of blue ; 
Till my friends have said 

They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red and the blue ! 
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs 
furled : 

They must solace themselves with the Saturn 
above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a world? 

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I 
love it. — My Star. 



SEPTEMBER 67 

13. — What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? 

when doors great and small, 
Nine and ninety flew ope at our touch, should the 

hundredth appal? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the 

greatest of all? — Saul. 

14. All love assimilates the soul 

To what it loves — — Paracelsus. 

15. "I am singled out by God, 

No sin must touch me." — Pauline. 

16. God ! Thou art love ! I build my faith on that. 

— Paracelsus. 

17. Man, once descried, imprints forever 
His presence on all lifeless things; the winds 
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, 

A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh — 
Never a senseless gust now man is born ! 

— Paracelsus. 

18. Aye, God remains, 
Even did men forsake you. 

19. Were't not for God, — what hope of truth — 
Speaking truth, hearing truth, would stay with 

man? 



20. 



Naught makes me think some love is true, 
But the delight of the contented lowness 
With which I gaze on him I keep forever 
Above me; I to rise and rival him? 
Feed his fame rather from my heart's best blood, 
Wither unseen that he may flourish still. 

— Pauline. 



68 SEPTEMBER 

21. — Justice shines in smoke-grimed habitations, 
And honors the well-omened life. 

— The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. 

22. Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes 

Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, 

Smeared with dull nards an Indian wipes 
From out her hair: such balsam falls 
Down sea-side mountain pedestals, 

From tree-tops where tired winds are fain. 

Spent with the vast howling main, 

To treasure half their island-gain. 

— Song from Paracelsus. 

23. And strew faint sweetness from some old 

Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; 
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 
From closet long to quiet vowed, 
With mothed and dropping arras hung, 
Mouldering her lute and books among, 
As when a queen, long dead, was young. 

— Song from Paracelsus. 

24. — In youth I looked to these very skies, 
And probing their immensities, 

I found God there, His visible power; 
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense 
Of that power, an equal evidence 
That His love, there too, was the nobler dower. 

— Christmas-Eve. 



SEPTEMBER 69 

25. Gladness be with thee, Helper of our world ! 
I think this is the authentic sign and seal 
Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad, 

And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts 
Into a rage to suffer for mankind, 
And recommence at sorrow; drops like seed 
After the blossom, ultimate of all. 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

26. The level wind carried above the firs 
Clouds, the irrevocable travelers 

Onward. —Sordello. 

27. Thus the Mayne glideth 
Where- my Love abideth 
Sleep's no softer : it proceeds 

On through lawns, on through meads, 

On and on, whate'er befall. 

Meandering and musical, 

Though the niggard pasturage 

Bears not on its shaven ledge 

Aught but weeds and waving grasses 

To view the river as it passes, 

Save here and there a scanty patch 

Of primroses too faint to catch 

A weary bee. — Song from Paracelsus. 

28. God ! Thou art mind ! Unto the Master-mind 
Mind should be precious. — Ibid. 

29. God's service is established here 
As He determines fit, and not your way, 
And this you cannot brook. — Ibid. 



70 SEPTEMBER 

30. It must oft fall out 

That one whose labor perfects any work, 
Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he 
Of all men least can measure the extent 
Of what he has accomplished. — Ibid. 



©ctofeer 



October 

i. Autumn has come like spring returned to us, 
Won from her girlishness; like one returned 
A friend that was a lover, nor forgets 
The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts 
Of fading years ; whose soft mouth quivers yet 
With the old smile, but yet so changed and still ! 

— Pauline. 

2. Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you, they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you 

Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
And all at once they leave you, and you know 
them ! — Paracelsus. 

3. No fruit man's life can bear will fade. 

— Balaustion's Adventure. 

4. The best men ever prove the wisest too : 
Something instinctive guides them still aright. 

—Ibid. 

5. This trouble must not hinder any more 

A true heart from good-will and pleasant ways. 

— Ibid. 

6. To shoot a beam into the dark assists, 

To make that beam do fuller service, spread 
And utilize such bounty to the height, 
That assists also, and that work is mine. 

— Prince Hohenstiel Schivangau. 



74 OCTOBER 

7. Evil or good may be better or worse 

In the human heart, but the mixture of each 
Is a marvel and a curse. — Gold Hair. 

8. All great works in this world spring from the ruins 
Of greater projects — ever, on our earth, 

Babels men block out, Babylons they build. 
— The Return of the Druses. 

9. Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness 

or naught. — Ixion. 

10. Our best is bad, nor bears thy test; 
Still, it should be our very best. 

— Christmas-Eve. 

11. Can the soul, the will, die out of a man 
Ere his body finds the grave that gapes? 

— The Statue and the Bust. 

12. For, more relaxed grows every one who fares 

well. — The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. 

13. "I can always leave off talking when I hear a 

master play !" — A Toccato of Galuppi's. 

14. Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth 
This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 
For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

— James Lee's Wife. 



OCTOBER 75 

15. Watch and pray! 
Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt ! 

— Gold Hair. 

16. Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 

— A Grammarian's Funeral. 

17. "O heart I made, a heart beats here ! 
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself ! 
Thou hast no power nor mayest conceive of mine : 
But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 

And thou must love me who have died for thee !" 

— An Epistle. 

t8. Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace 
soonest gives, 
Liberates the brain o'erloaded — best of all restor- 
atives. — La Saisiaz. 

19. What a thing friendship is, world without end ! 

— Flight of the Duchess. 

20. Progress means contention, to my mind. 

— Aristophanes' Apology. 

21. Men vastly differ: and we need 

Some strange exceptional benevolence 

Of nature's sunshine to develop seed 

So well, in the less favored clime, that hence 

We may discern how shrub means tree indeed 
Though dwarfed till scarcely shrub in evidence. 
— The Tivo Poets of Croisic. 



76 OCTOBER 

22. How the world is made for each of us ! 

How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moment's product thus, 
When a soul declares itself — to wit. 
By its fruit, the thing it does ! 

— By the Fireside. 

23. The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be, — but finding first 

What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means: a very different thing! 

— Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

24. Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. 

— Ibid. 

25. God is, and the soul is, and, as certain after death 

shall be. — La Saisiaz. 

26. All is as God over-rules. 

— Andrea del Sarto. 

27. Life means — learning to abhor 

The false, and love the true, truth treasured 

snatch by snatch, 
Waifs counted at their worth. 

— Fifine at the Fair. 

28. A poet never dreams: 

We prose-folk always do : we miss the proper duct 
For thoughts on things unseen, which stagnate 

and obstruct 
The system, therefore; mind, sound in a body 

sane, 



OCTOBER 77 

Keeps thoughts apart from facts, and to one flow- 
ing vein 

Confines its sense of that which is not, but might 
be, 

And leaves the rest alone. 

— Fifinc at the Fair. 

29. Who's the martyred man ? 

Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he can ! 
He that strove thus evil's lump with good to 

leaven, 
Let him give his blood at last and get his heaven ! 

— Before. 

30. All or nothing, stake it ! Trusts he God or no ? 
Thus far and no farther? farther? be it so! 

—Ibid. 

31. While God's champion lives, 

Wrong shall be resisted. — Ibid. 



Jlcfoemfcer 



jpobember 

i. How well I know what I mean to do 

When the long dark autumn evenings come; 
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? 
With the music of all thy voices dumb 
In life's November too ! 

— By the Fireside. 

2. Ah, Love, but a day, 
And the world has changed! 

The sun's away, 
And the bird estranged; 

The wind has dropped, 
"And the sky's deranged; 

Summer has stopped. 

— James Lee's Wife. 

3. But why must cold spread? but wherefore bring 

change 
To the spirit, 
God meant should mate his with an infinite range 

And inherit 
His power to put life in the darkness and cold? 
— James Lee's Wife. 

4. So must we die ourselves, 

And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. 
Life, how and what is it? 



Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: 
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? 
— The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's 
Church. 



82 NOVEMBER 

5. We are in God's hand, 
How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 

— Andrea del Sarto. 

6. Oh the sense of the yellow mountain flowers, 

And the thorny balls, each three in one, 
The chestnuts throw on your path in showers ! 

For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun, 
These early November hours. — 

— By the Fireside. 

7. Over the waters in the vaporous west 
The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold 
Behind the arm of the city, which between, 
With all that length of domes and minarets, 
Athwart the splendor, black and crooked runs 
Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. 

— Paracelsus. 

8. Truth is truth, 

And justifies itself by undreamed ways. 

— Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

9. Faith is my waking life : 

One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals, 
We know, but waking's the main point with us 
And my provision's for life's waking part. 

—Ibid. 

to. My doubt is great, 

My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. 

—Ibid. 



NOVEMBER 83 

11. "For I say, this is death and the sole death, 

"When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, 
"Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, 
"And lack of love from love made manifest; 
"A Lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes; 
"A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it 
starves." — A Death in the Desert. 



12. "God's gift was just that man conceive of truth 
"And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
"As midway help till he reach fact indeed." 

— Ibid. 



13. "The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, 
"Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness; 
"But copies, Moses strove to make thereby, 
"Serve still and are replaced as time requires : 
"By these, make newest vessels, reach the type ! 
"If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 
"Never to reach the ultimate angels' law, 
"Indulging every instinct of the soul 

"There where law, life, joy, impulse are one 
thing !" —Ibid. 

14. "How of the field's fortune? That concerned our 

Leader ! 
Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings 
left and right : 
Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, 
Lay the blame or lit the praise : no care for cow- 
ards : fight !" 

— Epilogue to "Ferislitah's Fancies." 



84 NOVEMBER 

15. You live, and rightly sympathize with life, 
With action, power, success. 

— In a Balcony. 

16. My heart had a touch of the woodland time, 

Wanting to sleep now over its best. 
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, 

But bring to the last leaf no such test ! 
"Hold the last fast !" runs the rhyme. 

— By the Fireside. 

17. Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail ! 



Still ailing wind? Wilt be appeased or no? 
Which needs the other's office, thou or I ? 
Dost want to be disburthened of a woe. 
And can in truth, my voice untie 
Its links, and let it go ? 

I know not any tone 

So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow : 

Dost think men would go mad without a moan, 

If they knew any way to borrow 

A pathos like thy own? — James Lee's Wife. 

18. "About 

As much as helps life last the proper term, 
The appointed Fourscore, — that I crave, and scout 
A too-prolonged existence. Let the worm 
Change at fit season to the butterfly !" 

— Jochanan Hakkadosh. 

19. Day's the song time for the lark, 
Night for her music boasts but owls and bats. 

—Ibid. 



NOVEMBER 85 

20. Look one step onward and secure that step. 

— Paracelsus. 

21. I joy because the quails come; would not joy 
Could I bring quails here when I have a mind. 

— Caliban upon Setcbos. 

22. "Good sportsman means good fellow, 
Sound-hearted he, to the centre ; 
Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops 
— There's where the rot can enter !" 

— Jocoseria-Donald. 

23. \\ here's a sin 

Except in doubting that the light which lured 
The unwary into darkness, meant no wrong 
Had I marched on bold, nor paused immured 
By mists I should have pressed through, passed 

along 
My way henceforth rejoicing? 

— Jochanan Hakkadosh. 

24. Rejoice we are allied 

To that which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive ! 

— Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

"In God rejoice !" 
"In Him rejoice 
Whose mercy endureth forever!" 

— Epilogue. 

25. No work begun shall ever pause for death. 

— The Ring and the Book. 



86 NOVEMBER 

26. Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true 
play. — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

27. Because a man has shop to mind 

In time and place, since flesh must live. 
Needs spirit lack all life behind, 
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive, 
All loves except what trade can give? 

— Shop. 

28. I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
All questions in the earth and out of it, 
And has so far advanced thee to be wise. 

— A Death in the Desert. 

29. God is seen God 

In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul 
and the clod. — Saul. 

30. Rather learn and love 

Each facet-flash of the revolving year ! 
Red, green and blue that whirl into a white, 
The variance now, the eventual unity, 
Which make the miracle. 

— The Ring and the Book. 



Becemfcer 



December 

i. Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life for which the first was made: 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, "A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half: trust God — 

See all, nor be afraid !" — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

2. Good to forgive; 

Best to forget ! 

Living, we fret ; 
Dying, we live. 

Fretless and free, 
Soul, clap thy pinion ! 
Earth have dominion, 

Body, over thee ! 

— Pisgah-Sights. 3. 

3. Have you found your life distasteful? 

My life did and does smack sweet. 
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? 

Mine I saved and hold complete. 
Do your joys with age diminish? 

When mine fail me, I'll complain. 
Must in death your daylight finish? 

My sun sets to rise again. 

— At the "Mermaid." 

4. God who registers the cup 

Of mere cold water, for his sake 
To a disciple rendered up, 

Disdains not his own thirst to slake 
At the poorest love was ever offered. 

— Christmas-Eve. 



qo DECEMBER 

5. Each faculty tasked, 

To perceive Him, has gained an abyss, where a 
dewdrop was asked. — Saul. 

6. What's life to me? 

Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen 
Music, and where I tend bliss evermore. 

— Paracelsus. 

7. Then life is — to wake, not sleep, 

Rise and not rest, but press 
From earth's level where blindly creep 

Things perfected more or less 
To the heaven's height far and steep. 

— Reverie. 

8. Let drift the helm, 

Let drive the sail, dare unconfined 

Embark for the vastitude, U Mind, 

Of an absolute bliss ! Leave earth behind ! 

— Rephan. 

9. Let one more attest 

I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, 
and all was for best. — Saul. 

10. I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 
The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and 
forebore, 
And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 
Of pain, darkness, and cold. — Prospice. 



DECEMBER 91 

n. Most progress is most failure. — Clcon. 

12. (Died Dec. 12, 1889.) 
So, take and use Thy work 
Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 

aim ! 
My times be in Thy hand ! 
Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 

same ! — Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

13. One who never turned his back, but marched 

breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 

would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

sleep to wake. — Asolando. 

14. As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil 
Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees 
Which grew by our youth's home, the waving 

mass 
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew, 
The morning swallows with their songs like words, 
All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts. 

— Pauline. 

15. I count life just a stuff 

To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 

— In a Balcony. 



92 DECEMBER 

16. But who are we, to spurn 

For peace's sake, duty's pointing? 

Up, then, — earn 
Albeit no prize we may but martyrdom ! 

— Parleyings; George Bubb Dodington. 

17- Life 

And song should away from heart to heart ! 

I — prison-bird, with a ready strife 
At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start — 
— Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 
That's spirit: though cloistered fast, soar free. 

— A Wall. 

18. Man might live at first 

The animal life; but is there nothing more? 

In due time, let him critically learn 

How he lives; and the more he gets to know 

Of his own life's adaptabilities 

The more joy-giving will his life become. 

Cleon. 

19. All is best believe, 

And we best as no other than we are. 

— In a Balcony. 

20. "What's time ? Leave now for dogs and apes ! 

Man has Forever ! 

— A Grammarian's Funeral. 

21. There shall never be one lost good! What was, 

shall live as before; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying 

sound ; 
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so 

much good more; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a 

perfect round. — Abt Voglcr. 



DECEMBER 93 

22. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, 
shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself: no beauty, nor 
good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for 
the melodist. 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 

— Abt Vogler. 

2$. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord 
again, 

Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor, — yes, 

And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien 
ground. 

Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into 
'the deep; 

Which, bark, I have dared and done, for my rest- 
ing-place is found. 

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to 
sleep. — Abt Vogler. 

24. The truth in God's breast 

Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed, 
Though He is so bright, and we are so dim, 
We are made in His image to witness Him. 

— Christmas-Eve. 

25. Festive bells — everywhere the Feast o' the Babe, 
Joy upon earth, peace and good will to man ! 

I am baptized. — The Ring and the Book. 

26. As the power, expect performance ! God's be 

God's as mine is mine ! — La Saisiaz. 



94 DECEMBER 

27. Only grant my soul may carry high through death 

her cup unspilled, 
Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss 

drop by drop distilled, 
I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly 

wrench that wrung 
From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root 

whence pleasure sprung, 
Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised 

the berry, left all grace 
Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its 

place ! — La Saisias. 

28. God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen ? 

— A Grammarian's Funeral. 

29. Man's work is to labor and leaven — 

As best he may — earth here with heaven; 
'Tis work for work's sake that he's needing: 
Let him work on and on as if speeding 
Work's end, but not dream of succeeding ! 
Because if success were intended, 
Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended. 

— Of Pacchiarotto. 

30. Well, I care — intimately care to have 

Experience how a human creature felt 
In after-life, who bore the burden grave 

Of certainly believing God had dealt 
For once directly with him : 



How many problems that one fact would solve ! 
An ordinary soul, no more, no less, 



DECEMBER 95 

About whose life earth's common sights revolve, 

On whom is brought to bear, by thunder-stress, 
This fact — God tasks him, and will not absolve 
Task's negligent performer ! 

— The Tzvo Poets of Croisic. 

31. (Buried — Westminster Abbey, Dec. 31, 1889.) 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 
Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should 

be, 
Strive and thrive ! cry "Speed, — fight on, fare ever 

— Epilogue. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 388 861 7 

Tmmnniimr 







